Ironbright
by Posher10
Summary: Fili, touch-starved, ran away when he was still a child. Forced to survive in the wilderness, he eventually made his way to the Shire, where he was adopted by the Baggins family and Bilbo became his new brother. But, years later, the quest comes knocking at their door and he must make peace with the family he desperately tried to forget and the little brother he left behind.
1. A Meeting of Brothers

Disclaimer: These characters don't belong to me; they belong to Tolkien; I'm simply borrowing them for my own twisted amusements. I also don't own the cover image.

Fili ran. That's what he had had been doing for a while. Branches tore at his cheeks and hair and brambles stole themselves onto his clothes, but he didn't falter. He couldn't. His breath came in stuttered, fleeting gasps, each sending spikes of pain through his throat. His legs burned beneath him and recognized the anguish in his left arm as a break in the bone. His hair was dirty and hung in clumps around his neck. Mud was smeared across his face, mixing with the odd spots of blood.

Fili dared a glance behind him, hoping that the footsteps he heard where no more than his imagination. He saw a tree line end and, in an instant, weighed his options.

He made his choice.

Fili bent low, crouching, and put on more speed, chest stinging. He shattered the branches as he exited and crashed right into another person.

Neither had any way to know that this chance meeting would change their lives and, in truth, the course of history.

* * *

 _It had been a good idea_. Thirteen-year-old(1) Bilbo decided, at last, feet padding on the road. A walk was a lovely way to clear his head; a way to get away from the town and the market, the busy households, and ever moving families. To have a moment of peace.

He breathed in the air and it felt strangely freer than he was used to. He sighed softly, hands crossed behind his back.

To most other, he would have looked quaint, placid. But under the surface of that frozen lake, was a whirlwind of emotions. _Was what they said true? Was I being too childish? Did I need to grow up?_

A sharp crack broke into Bilbo's thoughts and he jerked to the side, eyeing the brush. Was that movement he saw? He leaned closer in, eyes squinting. Something burst the trees, a blur of movement and speed, and before he knew what was happening, he was on the ground, caught in a tangled mass of limbs.

Bilbo pushed the other being away, dusting the dirt off his pants and looked at his attacker.

It was a dwarfling, about his age perhaps, with hair was dirty its color was indistinguishable, icy blue eyes wide with fear and pain, blood splattered over his limbs, his arm twisted at an unnatural angle, body trembling, hands shaking. He was sucking breath past his lips and was curled into himself, terrified.

Bilbo did not possess a heart of stone and felt deep pity stir within him for this dwarfling so far from home, lost and alone, scared of his own shadow. Slowly, unsure, he kneeled next to the shuddering form.

"Hello," Bilbo said softly. "My name is Bilbo Baggins of Bag End. May I know your name?" For a moment, there was no answer and he thought there would not be until he heard the quietest whisper, no more than a murmur, an exhale.

"Fi… Fili."

"It's lovely you met you, Fili." He said quietly. There was no reply. Bilbo rose to his feet silently, twisting in an acrobatic way that would have been impossible for most others. He waited for Fili to stand, but, when he didn't even make a move to do so, he offered out a hand.

The dwarfling simply stared at it. Unblinkingly. Unnervingly. Then he lurched forward, grasping the outstretched limp, tugging it close to his chest and holding it tight there like he never wanted to let go. Bilbo wasn't expecting the sharp jerk and stumbled forward, almost falling, but regained his footing and helped Fili to stand.

The dwarf planted his feet firmly in the ground and refused to move, still holding taut to Bilbo.

"Come with me." The hobbit coaxed, "We can go back to my home. It's warm there." He added, referencing the frigid air that clung to them. But still, Fili looked hesitant. "You don't have to let go the whole way there," Bilbo said, begging that this dwarf would concede. He wouldn't be able to move him with force and he didn't want to leave him. But he had no other cards to play. Fili swallowed uneasily, biting his lower lip, but nodded and the hobbit relaxed.

Bilbo led the dwarfling through the less used roads, hoping to avoid any other Shirelings. He would stumble often and kept Bilbo's hand close to his chest, next to his left arm, but the Hobbit let him. They moved slowly, but steadily.

Still, it was at almost nightfall when they neared Bag End. Fili had been growing more hesitant with every step and now had his gaze to the ground, the hobbit's hand still clasped tight in his own, but it was in front of him and Bilbo was almost dragging him along. They stopped outside his door and the hobbit took a breath.

How were his parents going to react to this? Belladonna and Bungo Baggins were kind folks, yes, but just as weary and untrusting of outsiders as any of the Shire's people. What would happen to Fili? Would he be left the world's horrors, all alone? Would his family look for him? Would they not? Did he even _have_ a family? But Bilbo pushed those fears aside and opened the door, enticing a creak from the hinges.

It showed Fili the place that would soon be his new home.

Author's Note:

Really sorry it's so short, but, then again, when are first chapters not? I'll try to make them longer. I might start a schedule on this, but right now I'm not.

(1)I know they're not, but I'm making Bilbo and Fili the same age, and I think thirteen for hobbits is the equivalent of nine to a man. Please correct me if I'm wrong!

Drop a review and tell me what you think, please!


	2. A Dwarf Among Hobbits

Bilbo waited by the door, taping his feet anxiously, biting his lower lip. He was nervous about his parents' return. They had left a note, saying that they were going to the market and probably be back around sundown. As he watched the darkness draping itself slowly over the Hobbit holes, he wondered how the world he was supposed to explain Fili to them.

Should he be blunt? Lead up slowly to the point, explain it to them gently? Let them meet the dwarfling themselves? Bilbo sighed, shaking his head sharply. How was he going to ever be able to do this?

The door slid open, jerking the young Hobbit from his thoughts. It was his parents, arms laden with bags.

"Help us with this, would you, Bilbo?" His mother asked, not even throwing him a second glance.

"Mother, wait." He never called her that, and that was what made her pause.

"Yes?" She asked apprehensively, setting down a few of her bags on the floor. He took a breath, steeled his nerves, and spoke.

"I found a boy in the woods. I don't think he has a family. He's covered in blood, Mum." She gasped, holding a hand to her mouth. "He's a dwarf." Her eyes hardened instantly.

"Then why do you care about him? Have you forgotten what we have told you of dwarves? They are savage folk. He's probably already a criminal by our laws." She replied.

"Mum, he didn't attack me the whole way home. He seems absolutely terrified." She bit her lip. Bilbo could see her maternal instinct and her mistrust of outsiders warring against themselves.

He could only hope that the former won.

"Alright. Let me see him." Bilbo glanced at his father, who had yet to speak. Bungo was going to be the challenge; he already knew it. The story that had broken his mother didn't even seem to faze the older Hobbit.

"He's in the living room." His mother bustled past him, leaving him alone with Bungo.

"Father." He whispered softly, "See him as a child, like me. Don't look at his race." With those words, Bilbo stalked away, leaving his shocked father behind him.

* * *

Fili stood, stone-faced, in the corner. He did not sit on the furniture. Belladonna mothered over him, inspecting his hair, before declaring that he needed a bath, despite his mute protests. Bilbo's mother led him to the bathroom, where she showed him how to use it. Letting him have his privacy, Belladonna left him alone. Afterward, she tried to wrestle with his hair. It was knotted in ways she had never seen, tangled in places that didn't make logical sense. It took her two hours and half a foot of hair, but she did it.

Fili asked for clips to tie his hair back with and Bilbo found what he could, ending up with two beads and a cracked clasp. The dwarf didn't care. He rearranged his locks in an odd, lopsided style, which was probably missing a few extra fasteners, but he didn't complain.

Once, he had pulled a slender knife out of his boot. Bella tried to confiscate it, claiming that he was too young. But Fili clutched the blade close to his chest, eyes wide with fear, slicing his fingers on the sharp edge, wetting the metal with blood. He didn't seem to notice.

Or care.

Bilbo reasoned that perhaps he was older in his culture than he looked. They didn't age the same, did they? Maybe he was old enough to have a knife. Eventually, his mother gave him and let him keep the weapon, which Fili returned to the hidden place in his shoe.

He did not remove it again.

The dwarfling had been with them for about a night and half a day, but he yet to say more than a collection of words. Until he ended up with a one on one conversation with Bungo Baggins.

It was about midday. Bilbo and his mother had gone to the market, unsure about leaving behind, but deciding that he was safe with the Hobbit's father.

That left Fili, alone, with Bungo, who had stubbornly refused to look at the dwarfling up until this point. The child had been staring at him for the past twenty minutes and the Hobbit swore that he hadn't blinked once. _Once_.

"Would you quit staring at me?" He asked, harsher than he intended, eyes peeking out from behind his book to see the dwarfling's reaction. It was obvious, and not what he wanted. He had expected defiance, a rebellious streak now that he was left alone with just someone who no one would believe if they retold a tale of his misdeeds. That was what he assumed the little savage would do. But Fili's response was the bite his lip so hard that it drew blood, bowing his head, shuffling his feet, with a muffled whisper of,

"Sorry, sir." It startled Bungo so much that he couldn't reply for a moment.

"You don't have to call me sir, Fili." The Hobbit answered, surprised at the own tenderness in his voice and even more so by the fact that called the dwarfling by his name. Fili shot him a quizzical glance and then lowered his head.

"Yes, I do, sir."

"No, Fili, you don't. Just call me Bungo, alright?" The dwarfling looked at him strangely and said in a hesitant, restrained voice.

"Of course… Bungo."

When Belladonna and Bilbo returned, the two were laughing openly, causing Bella to smile.

* * *

It took a month. Just a month. At dinner was they brought it up.

"So, Fili," Belladonna had started, "we were wondering…"

"Yes?" The dwarfling asked, looking up.

"Well, Fili…" Bungo continued, but, like his wife, broke off. Fili was now looking at them all like they were completely insane, and they didn't blame him.

"We were wondering if you wanted us to adopt you." Bilbo blurted out after a moment and Fili stared at him.

And stared at him.

Then asked in the smallest whisper possible,

"You really mean it?" The three nodded viscously and Fili nodded while tears slipped out of the sides of his eyes.

They quickly noticed some things about the dwarfling. For one, he always seemed startled when one of them reached out to touch him. Not like he was scared of it and simply didn't like, more like he didn't expect. So, they tried to do it more often.

For a while, they tried to figure out who his original family was. They keep a book of any hints he dropped and recorded them, such as the fact that he started calling Bungo 'father' and later even 'dad' but never called Belladonna 'mother'. Had he had a mother but not a father?

But, Fili found out and politely asked them to stop, so they left the book in the bottom of a trunk to collect dust.

A year to the day after Bilbo had found his brother in the woods, Fili started wearing beads in the first lock of hair on his right side. The dwarfling had already explained to them that the hairstyles of his people represented different things, so it was a noticeable change. When his brother asked, Fili told him with a smile.

That place was reserved for the mark of your family.

And, if you looked closely, you could see that the crest of the Baggins family was carved into the wood.

Late that night, when everyone else was asleep, Fili crept out of the house to stare at the stars. He whispered his heart, his grief, to the blowing wind.

"Good-bye, Kili. You were my first little brother, but you were not my last. I will miss you, but I will move on."

With that, he slunk back into the house, closing the window behind him and climbed into his bed.

That was the last time he thought about his dwarvish brother until the Company of Thorin Oakenshield came knocking on their door.

Author's Note:

There you go! Sorry, if it was a bit jumpy. Also, this is actually based off an abandoned fanfiction I read on archiveofourown but I can't find it again to give credit to the author. If you do happen to find it, let me know!

Replies:

Kat . TarEstil: I'm glad you can't wait. I can't either!

MissCalaLilly: Thank you! And, don't worry, I'm going to continue!

SunSong: Thank you! Here's some more! Oh, and if you like dwarves being raised by hobbits, check out _Strangers like Me_ by **Hobb3y.** Amazing like fanfiction, voted number one Lord of the Rings or Hobbit fanfic in 2016. It's one of my favorites.


	3. Fili Baggins, Son of Bungo

If there was only one thing that Bilbo knew about his brother, it was that he hated other dwarves. Though there weren't many times when they had the chance to speak to one of Fili's kind, the adopted son of Bungo vehemently avoided them. The hobbit had no idea why, but he didn't ask. That seemed to be what happened a lot with his brother. Fili had his demons.

Like his avoidance of fire.

Or, in contrast, his fear of rivers.

How he froze when he was spoken to in a sharp tone.

The way he walked softly, almost soundlessly, but his eyes were still hard and watchful, and he flinched the few times someone managed to surprise him.

How he never slept on nights with a full moon.

And of these demons, he didn't ask about them. The few times he did, he received only a blank stare in return. But Bilbo saw, and he took note, and he wondered.

That was why, when he opened the door that fateful night, expecting to find his brother there, back from visiting their Tookish cousins, asking himself why Fili had nocked in the first place, he was struck-dumb to find a dwarf. A different dwarf. A dwarf that was most definitely not Fili standing there.

The son of Aul _ë_ bowed.

"Dwalin, at your service."

"Bilbo Baggins, at yours." The dwarvish greeting his brother had taught him rose to his lips instantly. He answered this 'Dwalin's questions but rote, not really thinking before he spoke.

Or when he greeted Balin.

Or Bofur, Bifur, Bombur, Nori, Ori, Dori, Oin, or Gloin.

His answers were clipped and without feeling as he tried to puzzle out the scenario he had been faced with.

And its most pressing question.

 _How am I going to keep them away from Fili?_

Not even when he saw Gandalf did he came back to reality, and he thought the wizard could tell.

But when he saw Thorin and Kili, something in him sparked, something pushed him back into the world.

It might have been the braids they wore, the bead with the shape on it that he swore he recognized from somewhere.

It might have been the light that the other dwarves had, the one that was missing from Kili's eyes.

But, when Bilbo thought back to that moment in later years, he was certain it was because of the shape of their faces and noses, that reminded him strangely of Fili.

He separated himself from them, waiting by the door, waiting for his brother, in the vain hope that he could herd him away until their guests left.

When Fili opened the door, a small bag slung over his shoulder, his rare smile present on his face, the first place he tried to go, of course, was the dining room.

"You can't go in there." His grin faded to a frown.

"Why ever not?"

Unbeknownst to the two brothers, the walls in Bag End where not as thick as they believed them to be, and, in the silence called by Gandalf and Thorin, they could hear every word.

"Why ever not?" Bofur nodded at the question. Why couldn't this new character go in… wherever it was he wanted to go?

"There are _dwarves_ in there." They all stiffened? Dwarves? Was he being racist? They waited with bated breath, hoping that this newcomer would defend them. But, to their disgust, he paused, then said only,

"Dwarves? Why are there dwarves in there?" Thorin growled. He'd had enough. Throwing back his chair, he stalked into the other room, shoving open the door to meet face to face with their host and his friend.

To his shock, it was another dwarf.

Another dwarf with pale, blonde hair, such much like his long-lost nephew that his heart ached. But the dwarf turned to him in utter apathy and said, in a voice calm and clear as a lake on a winter's day,

"Hail, Thorin Oakenshield, King of Erebor and the Blue Mountains." The king's face twitched.

"Who are you?"

"I am Fili Baggins." He paused. For one brief, shining moment, he could pretend that it was his sister-son standing there, but then he remembered the locks of hair they had found, the note, the blade that was gone, the way he never returned, even though it was winter, and all the passes were blocked.

"Fili, son of Dis?" Fili's face didn't change. He barely gave a reaction at all.

"I have not gone by that name in many years, nor do I ever intend to go by it again. I am Fili Baggins," he repeated in the same voice, not even looking at the male he had just claimed as he uncle.

Bilbo looked between them in a mixture of confusion and shock and from the dining room, the members all glanced at each other and Kili's eyes lit up for the first time in years.

Author's Note:  
This is way shorter than I wanted it to be, and it feels way to rushed.

Tell me what you think, please!


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